Steve Finn's knock knees and batsmen who take leave of their senses

It began with a discussion about Steven Finn’s kneeing of the stumps and the
subsequent call of dead ball that cost him the wicket of Suresh Raina in
England’s recent fourth one-day international against India in Mohali.

Leave it out: Simon Jones celebrates the wicket of Michael Clarke who has been bowled shouldering arms at Old Trafford in 2005Photo: GETTY

“Did he practise at nets,” wondered one journalist, “with just one stump or three at the bowler’s end?”

The answer until recently would have been one, and with no umpire standing, so that he would bowl no-ball after no-ballmuch to the batsman’s chagrin.

But cricket has sharpened up. Such attention to detail is de rigueur. However, I did suggest to the journalist that if one stump was being used, if it was in the hole nearest the bowler, it would still be fine. That was the one Finn had to avoid with his knee.

For some reason the said journalist could not fathom my thinking, and so, amid much hilarity, it was announced that he had lost his off stump, the cricketing equivalent of losing one’s marbles.

From there talk inevitably moved to recollections of being dismissed shouldering arms. Ducking Adam Hollioake’s slower ball to be lbw did not count - it is always difficult to view the white ball at Swansea - but Ed Giddins, Shaun Pollock and a chap called Murray Turner, who played a few games for Somerset, did count among those to whom I raised the cricketing white flag with horrible misjudgement.

For a batsman there used to be no greater ignominy. To lose your off stump, in other words not know which balls to play at and which to leave, was to lose your game entirely.

But these days is it really an issue? Leaving the ball is for sissies, isn’t it? Twenty20 has seen to that. Leave a ball there and you are ridiculed for life. In 50-over cricket, beyond the opening overs, only the supremely gifted like Mahendra Singh Dhoni can leave early in their innings, safe in the knowledge that their power can recapture the required rate later on. So it is little surprise that in Test cricket batsmen rarely leave. Nowadays, as evidenced by Pakistan’s sorry collapse against South Africa last week, they nibble at balls outside off stump just as voraciously as a group of journalists in front of a free buffet.

And the Decision Review System has also meant that batsmen are often reluctant to stand in front of their stumps unless they really have to. Right-handed batsmen stand outside off stump to off-spinners, and outside leg stump to left-arm spinners to avoid lbws.

The retirement of Andrew Strauss last summer might just have signalled the end of an era. In a way it was fitting that his final dismissal was lbw to Vernon Philander for one, shouldering arms.

At the time we deciphered it as evidence of a scrambled mind, but Strauss had survived close shaves before. Remember the first Ashes Test in Brisbane in 2010? Strauss had been out for a duck in the first innings, and to his first ball of the second innings he shouldered arms to Ben Hilfenhaus. The appeal was turned down, but a review was called for. It was rejected, but had it not been, with the captain having bagged a pair, who knows how the rest of the Ashes might have unfolded?

Strauss was an old-fashioned player who looked to leave. Even Alastair Cook can grope away outside off stump sometimes. The Indians were exasperated at how often he played and missed against them this winter.

It was interesting that one of the goals given to England’s new opening batsman, Nick Compton, by his mentor Neil Burns was “to become the most judicious leaver on fourth and fifth stump.”

For those looking to leave a lot, there are some words of caution, though. First, making the leave your first priority is fraught with danger. Even the most defensive batsmen look to play the ball first, then leave when they cannot.

And second, while the cliché goes that there are only two types of leave - good and bad - it also holds true that sometimes a bowler can bowl a ball good enough to mock even the best leave.

A prime exhibit of such is the ball with which Simon Jones dismissed Michael Clarke shouldering arms in the 2005 Ashes at Old Trafford. No ball can ever have reverse-swung so late from so wide.

It was the best leave I have ever seen from a dismissed batsman. It was entirely the correct decision. Clarke had lost his off stump but not his marbles.